Opening the festival was Gerard Krawczyk’s remake of the 1953 “Fanfan la Tulipe,” starring Penelope Cruz. Closing the festival will be Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 silent movie “Modern Times.” The entire event is dedicated to the memory of Italian director Federico Fellini. French actress Jeanne Moreau is also scheduled to receive a special award from Cannes.

Originally, Cannes was created as an alternative to the Venice festival, which was controlled by the Italian and German Fascist governments during the 1930s. The festival was scheduled to premiere in 1939, but the outbreak of World War II postponed it until its debut in 1946, when directors like Alfred Hitchcock came to Cannes to screen their films for the first time. It wasn’t until the early 1950s however, that big time stars like Orson Welles began appearing, and the festival really began to take off.

Now, the festival is one of the glitziest events of the year, with movie stars and big name directors from around the globe premiering their newest films for the first time. This year films including “The Matrix Reloaded,” starring Keanu Reeves, made their world premieres at Cannes. They were not however, included in the competition.

For those competing, many eagerly await the screening of predicted winners such as “The Swimming Pool,” by Francois Ozon, starring Charlotte Rampling, “Purple Butterfly,” by Lu Ye, starring “Rush Hour 2” actress Zhang Ziyi, and “Dogville,” by Lars Von Trier, starring Oscar winner Nicole Kidman.

The Cannes film jury this year is headed by French director Patrice Chereau. Among the nine jury members are Hollywood sweetheart Meg Ryan and Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai. Rai is the first Bollywood actress to be invited to sit on the jury at Cannes.

Several well known directors, such as Theo Angelopouos, Quentin Taratino, and Ethan and Joel Coen, were expected to enter their films but did not have them prepared in time for the festival. This resulted in an increase in new and unfamiliar names at Cannes. In fact, six of the directors are entering the competition for the first time.

Among the newcomers are two Japanese directors, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Naomi Kawase, and Chinese director Lu Ye. Kurosawa has directed several ground breaking films since his first feature in 1983, “The Kandagawa Wars.” Among these are the crime thriller “Cure,” whose star, Koji Yakusho won an award for Best Actor at Tokyo Film Festival and “Charisma,” which was invited to be screened at Cannes in 1999 for the Director’s Week section. This year, Kurosawa’s “Akarui Mirai” (Bright Future) is scheduled to compete at Cannes. The realistic drama about two young men who work at an oshibori (wet hand towel) plant and become friends, stars Joe Odagiri and Tadanobu Asano. Also starring in the film is Tatsuya Fuju, who plays Asano’s stubborn yet caring father.

Lu Ye, the up-and-coming Chinese director, has also been a part of several projects. Since his graduation from Beijing Film Academy he has directed “Weekend Lover” (1994), winner of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Prize for Best Director at the Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival in 1996. He also founded independent production company, Dream Factory, which produced “Suzhou River,” winner of the VRPO Tiger Award at the Rotterndam Film Festival in 2000. This year, Ye is competing at Cannes with “Purple Butterfly,” the story of a Chinese girl named Cynthia (Zhang Ziyi) who falls in love with Itami, a young Japanese man. The couple parts in the film when Itami is called to duty by the Japanese military. In the three years that pass, Cynthia’s brother is murdered by Japanese extremists and Cynthia joins Purple Butterfly, a resistance group planning to assassinate the head of the Japanese secret service.

Overall, the 56th annual Cannes Film Festival is expected to be a smashing success, despite rumors that Americans would be boycotting the event due to France’s disapproval of the war against Iraq. Organizers of Cannes deny that the recent tiff between France and the U.S. would cause any changes to the festival. President of Cannes, Gilles Jacob recently stated that, “the current state of the world will not have a negative effect on the friendly tradition between American film and the Cannes Festival.”

May 21, 2003